So you spend a few hundred bucks on your new toy. You realize that this cell-phone is partially paid for by your crappy carrier be it AT&T / Verizon or someone else. You accept the fact that they paid part of the bill so you promise to be them faithful for 2 years with your device. No problems so far (you can choose to pay full price and not deal with this "hassle").

Now things gets interesting. The FCC SHOULD have made it mandatory for the carriers to provide free unlocking services once your contract expired. The subsidy has been paid back, the contract has been fulfilled you did pay for the phone. It is hardware.

Instead a law was put into effect on Saturday Jan 26th that explicitely makes it ILLEGAL to unlock the cell-phone.

This only takes a few minutes so I encourage you to sign the white house petition recalling this law. I know there are more important things out there in this world but this is free and takes very little time. You should also be signed up to sign these petitions regardless - some may be more worthwhile than others.....

The law was actually in effect quite a few years ago, but was exempted until now. It should be exempted again, though; certainly. Sac, that's not exactly correct; it's not a SIM-unlocked phone if you buy it at full price. (My Galaxy Note II, purchased at full price for $700 + tax so I could keep unlimited data with Verizon, is still locked to Verizon, as an example.) Some phones come SIM-unlocked, (Nexus 4) but the vast majority don't; and the ones that don't, it's now illegal for you to do it yourself.

SacHawk2.0 wrote:If you pay full price for the phone it still comes unlocked. If you fulfill a contract the big carriers will unlock it for you. It's just illegal for Joe Schmo to do it.

Not true - many carriers will not unlock it for you. Most will currently unlock it for you if you are going to travel abroad but not unlocked for domestic market.

With this new law just passed these carriers will probably immediately stop unlocking the phone. Why would they unlock it? What is the incentive? They want to force you to buy one through them locked to them and when you resell your property the next guy is locked to them.

^ yes but based on your location back home you only wear what has been taken from a dead foe so the cell-phone might be slightly blood-stained right?

I personally like the option of a subsidized phone by the carrier. You know when you sign up that it is a 2 year agreement. The issue I have is that you fulfill your part of the contract and they now got this rule to be non-excempt. That is a joke as you paid for the property. This condition doesn't exist anywhere else in our legal system.

mikeak wrote:^ yes but based on your location back home you only wear what has been taken from a dead foe so the cell-phone might be slightly blood-stained right?

I personally like the option of a subsidized phone by the carrier. You know when you sign up that it is a 2 year agreement. The issue I have is that you fulfill your part of the contract and they now got this rule to be non-excempt. That is a joke as you paid for the property. This condition doesn't exist anywhere else in our legal system.

That explains why Peaches is always nude. I thought he was just a creep.

mikeak wrote:^ yes but based on your location back home you only wear what has been taken from a dead foe so the cell-phone might be slightly blood-stained right?

I personally like the option of a subsidized phone by the carrier. You know when you sign up that it is a 2 year agreement. The issue I have is that you fulfill your part of the contract and they now got this rule to be non-excempt. That is a joke as you paid for the property. This condition doesn't exist anywhere else in our legal system.

That explains why Peaches is always nude. I thought he was just a creep.

For those who didn't get it, Mike was referring to my location, which is a reference to the Song of Ica and Fire series, and his first sentence was an allusion to that. But yes, i am a creep.

Football is not a matter of life and death. It's much more important than that. ~ Bill Shankley